#93 Jim McCloskey's Mission to Free the Wrongly Convicted

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In this episode, we hear from Jim McCloskey about the journey that took him from the corporate world to his current work with those who have been wrongly convicted of crimes. McCloskey founded Centurion Ministries, an organization that has "completed 70 releases of men and women who were serving life or death sentences for crimes they did not commit." McCloskey is the author of When Truth is All You Have, and co-wrote Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions with John Grisham. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Hangout Podcast.
I'm your host, David Shoretta.
Come on in and hang out.
In this episode, I was veryprivileged and honored to have a
conversation with Jim McCluskey.
Jim is currently an activistand the founder of Centurion

(00:28):
Ministries.
Centurion was the firstinnocence organization in the
United States and their missionis to vindicate the wrongly
convicted.
In our conversation, Jimrelates his earlier part of his
life, when he was a highly paidbut unfulfilled financial
consultant and businessman inAsia.

(00:50):
What led him into pursuing amaster's of divinity, what led
him then into working withprisoners and how, through
relationships built andconversations held with at least
one prisoner in particular,Chiefie it led to this lifetime

(01:12):
devotion to this cause ofvindicating the wrongly
convicted.
Along the way, Jim penned anengaging and often
heart-wrenching autobiographycalled when Truth Is All you
have.
That will be linked in the shownotes, as will be a recent book
that he co-wrote with noneother than the great John

(01:35):
Grisham, and we talk about howboth of those books came
together.
I hope you enjoy thisconversation as much as I did.
Jim is a wonderful storytellerand just an engaging personality
, and I encourage all listenersto check out centurionorg.
Consider donating of time orresources.

(01:57):
Welcome, Jim, it's such anhonor to have you on the podcast
this morning slash afternoon.
Thank you so much for joiningus.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, david, it's my privilege and I was surprised to
get the invitation from yourschool and you and Tina in San
Diego a while back.
And the day has arrived andI've been looking forward to
this.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, we were surprised to hear back from you
because you know, centurion ishigh profile and you co-wrote
the book with a probably one ofthe highest profile of all all
authors, and so I thought, ah,this.
Neither one of them is going toeven respond to me and, of
course, you were very graciousand and everyone has a busy

(02:43):
schedule, but I had something tolook forward to in the new year
with this, so it's a great,great honor to have this chat
with you.
I wanted to start out where westart out with all guests, which
is with your origin story.
Now, I know, having read yourautobiography and then also
framed, um, uh, your, yourorigin story is is colorful and

(03:07):
long and complicated.
So choose what you, what youwill from there, and then we'll
move on to stories of, uh, moreof the specific work of
centurion.
But, like, what do you whenyou're on an airplane and
someone says, hey, what do youdo and where are you from?
How do do you answer that?

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Well, as you say, it's a long story, so if I'm
rattling on, you know.
Please jump in and let me knowthat that's happening.
I was born in a place calledHabertown, which is about 10
miles west of Philadelphia.
My mom and dad had three of us.

(03:46):
I'm the oldest son, my youngerbrother, richard, is a year and
a half younger than I am, and asister, lois, who's 10 years
younger.
Anyway, we were raised in anaffluent family in the suburbs
of Philadelphia.
My dad was a constructionexecutive for a large family

(04:06):
construction firm, mccluskeyCompany.
But anyway I went to Bucknell,which is in central Pennsylvania
, graduated in 64, and didn'treally know what I wanted to do
with the rest of my life.
But I did know that I wanted tobe a quote unquote
international business executive, whatever that meant and

(04:28):
wherever that led me.
But the first thing I did wasgo to Officer Candidate Training
School, the Navy TrainingSchool in Newport, Rhode Island,
and I graduated at the end of1964 as an ensign a freshly
minted ensign and they sent meto Japan, which is exactly where

(04:53):
I asked them to send me,because I've always been
fascinated, even from highschool on, with the Japanese
culture and people.
And so I spent a year and ahalf in Yokosuka, which is about
an hour south of Tokyo, at abig Navy base.
But then I got bored with thatand volunteered to go to Vietnam

(05:16):
, and this is in the spring of66.
Things were starting to reallyheat up at that point down there
and I wanted to be part of theaction.
And also I was very naive andidealistic and thought that this
was something that Americashould be doing defending the

(05:40):
democracy of South Vietnam andstem the flow of communism.
I came to see how misplacedthat view was not too long after
arriving in Japan I mean inVietnam.
But anyway I was assigned whichI had asked for to live on a

(06:10):
South Vietnamese Navy base inthe Mekong Delta and our job was
to patrol the rivers of ourparticular sector of the Delta
and the Saigon River leading upto Saigon, as well as the South
China Sea coast.
So I did that for a year.
I learned a lot about life andhow the world really works.
That's when I really started tomature, I think, as an
individual.
But after three years I decidedto resign from the Navy and

(06:35):
start my career path of being aninternational businessman,
which again led me to Japan, andI ended up going to Tokyo and
working for a managementconsulting firm Now we're going
into the late 60s, into the 70s,and our firm assisted American

(06:56):
firms in understanding theJapanese market and identifying
and negotiating joint venturepartners with Japanese companies
and negotiating joint venturepartners with Japanese companies
.
I then decided, after fiveyears in Tokyo as a civilian
businessman, to return home.
I got homesick and I came hometo the suburbs of Philadelphia

(07:22):
unemployed but was able to landon my feet with a very large
management consulting firmheadquartered in Philadelphia
who, at that very time 1974,they were looking for someone to
build its business withJapanese subsidiaries in the
United States and set us up inTokyo, which is what I was hired

(07:44):
to do and did.
So that was my, if you will,secular history While working
for Hay H-A-Y, the Hay Group,the consulting firm.
At the same time, I feltsomething was really missing in
my life and that was a spiritualelement in my life.

(08:04):
And that was a spiritualelement.
And throughout the 70s, for thefirst time as an adult, I
returned to church to hopefullyregain my boyhood faith, which I
had lost along the way, and Ialso had lost my moral compass

(08:30):
along the way, and I wanted torectify that.
And so two things were going onwithin me.
One was a disenchantment withthe business world and a feeling
that my life was selfish,self-centered, and at the same
time, I was very inspired byDick Streeter, the minister of a

(08:51):
Presbyterian church that Ibelonged to.
I was inspired by his preachingand I was inspired by the work
that he was doing, reallytouching the hearts and souls of
a lot of congregants, includingmyself.
And so I started alone thinkingyou know, I want to be like

(09:13):
Dick Streeter, I want to reallyhelp transform lives and touch
the souls of people and serveothers instead of serving myself
, which I had been doing for 37years.
So again, long story short, overa couple year period of time,
consulting only with DickStreeter not my parents, not my

(09:35):
family, not my friends, not mycolleagues at Hay I felt God was
calling me to leave thebusiness world altogether and go
into the ministry and become achurch Presbyterian pastor.
And so Dick advised me that ifthat's what you think the Lord

(09:55):
is leading you towards, then youneed to go to Princeton
Theological Seminary and getyour master divinity degree.
Go to Princeton TheologicalSeminary and get your master
divinity degree, which is athree-year program, in order to
qualify for ordination.
So that's what I did in thefall of 1979, at the age of 37.

(10:18):
I started life all over again,thinking I was going to become a
church pastor.
So I'll stop there.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Well, that's, I have so many questions, as I did when
I also heard this in yourautobiography as well.
I'm wondering, you know, whatthe reaction from your parents
was, from colleagues, I mean,you went from what was the

(10:51):
societally accepted or exaltedtype of a role.
Yeah, and you know, imagine, asAsia is just opening up to the
West and this I remember when itwas the Japanese tiger, right,
that was like that thing when Iwas a kid, people must've
thought you were crazy.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Well, they absolutely did, and that's why and I knew
that would be their reaction,and I certainly couldn't blame
them for viewing it in thatmanner.
That's why I did not consultfor viewing it in that manner.
That's why I did not consult orinform any of people close to
me loved ones and others thatthis was percolating in my mind.

(11:33):
And then this is what I'm goingto do.
But once I told my parents andbrother and sister that this is
what I'm doing I'm leaving thebusiness world they were shocked
, stunned, couldn't believe it.
However, they were good churchpeople and they were supportive,
although wondering if I reallyknew what I was doing.

(11:57):
Was this a midlife crisis thatyou're undergoing?
And you're just not.
We're just not sure this is theright thing for you.
And my mother predicted even atthat time.
She said Jim, you're not cutout to be a pastor.
Well, she was the secretary ofa Presbyterian church in our
neighborhood, so she knew whatgoes on within churches and what

(12:21):
the real job of a pastor is.
And she says there are too manycommittee meetings.
You're going to get frustrated.
A lot of hand-holding.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
I don't think this is what the Lord has cut out for
you.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
I said oh, mom, come on, I know what I'm doing here.
So, anyway, my boss at Hay,when I walked into his office
one day in 1979 and told himwhat I was doing, his first word
I'll never forget the firstwords out of his mouth.
I'd been working for him, hewas a top general partner in the

(12:55):
consulting firm and he said Jim, I didn't even know you went to
church, which was indicative ofthe two lives that I was
leading at the same time, thesecular life and the spiritual
life, got them both separatedone from the other.
I have a tremendous ability, Iguess, to compartmentalize.
Anyway, he asked me to stay onfor another six months to finish

(13:19):
, tidy up what I'd been workingon, which I did, and in
September of 79, off, I went tothe seminary, sold my home.
One thing I didn't sell was my1976 Lincoln Continental.
I love that car.
I couldn't part with it.
But when I went up to theseminary and checked into the

(13:41):
dormitory and at that time in 79, that's the gas crisis and I
was maybe getting seven milesper gallon in that Lincoln
Continental.
So I got rid of that in exchangefor a Pinto.
But anyway, I started myseminary, my three-year Master
of Divinity program and livingin a dormitory, and it was a

(14:04):
whole new life, whole new world.
But I was excited, I wasenthusiastic, I really believed
this is what I was meant to do,this is my destiny, and I was
really conforming to what Iconsider to be the call of the
Lord.
So in my second year at theseminary another thing is you

(14:25):
ask what was the reaction of myfriends I had heard from a few
of the wives of my Bucknellfriends and, by the way, to this
day I've maintained a verystrong relationship with my
fraternity brothers at Bucknell.
We happen to be five gamesFijis with my fraternity

(14:46):
brothers at Bucknell.
We happened to be five gamesFijis.
But the wives of some of myfraternity brothers told me that
they were worried, that theywere going to lose me as a
friend, that I'm going off inthis crazy direction, my
personality was going to changeand that's the end of the
friendship.
They feared that that wouldhappen, which it did not.

(15:09):
So in my second year at theseminary I volunteered to do my
field education assignmentobligation at Trenton State
Prison as a student chaplain andthat was just the facility.
The corrections facility that Iwas assigned was only about a

(15:30):
20, 25-minute ride from theseminary.
Two completely differentenvironments the leafy Princeton
Seminary and then the harshnessof the Trenton facility where I
was assigned, which was for themost troublesome of New Jersey
inmates.
Anyway, two afternoons a week,tuesday and Thursday, three

(15:55):
hours a day, I would go on, acell block and cell by cell, a
cell block and cell by cell.
I had two cell blocks, 40 men,and my job was not evangelical,

(16:17):
just to be their friend, tostand in front of their cell.
They're in their cell, I'moutside looking in and we would
converse about whatever theywanted to talk about.
Those conversations with thoseinmates were very stimulating,
challenging.
They were very, veryinquisitive about my faith and
if there is a God, what makesyou believe there's a God?
A lot of fundamental, profoundtheological questions.

(16:40):
Questions were being challengedfrom them to me.
Anyway, one of the 40 men onlyone was proclaiming his name,
was Jorge de los Santos.
He was proclaiming hisinnocence.
He told me I am in prison, I'mhere on a murder conviction

(17:08):
Seven years ago.
I did not do it, I had nothingto do with it.
And not only that, he insistedhe was framed by the prosecutor
and the police in Newark, newJersey.
So Mr De Los Santos, nicknamedChiefie, was raised in the harsh
public housing projects up inNewark and he was a drug addict,

(17:29):
a heroin addict.
When I met him he was 30, hewas 35 or so.
He had been in prison for sevenyears.
He was convicted of being oneof a botched armed robbery of a
seedy used car lot in Newark,new Jersey.

(17:52):
He was convicted based on thetestimony of two men, both of
whom were drug addicts.
An eyewitness claimed that ashe was driving by the used car
lot he heard shots and he sawChiefie run away along with
another man who he alsoidentified.
Chiefie was indicted basedsolely on that eyewitness

(18:14):
account, put in the county jaila career criminal as it turned
out and claimed that while inthe county jail together, mr De
Los Santos confessed the crimeto him in detail.
So you have a jailhouseconfession and an eyewitness

(18:34):
account.
Now, at that point, in the fallof 79, when I'm 37 years old, I
had absolutely no experiencewhatsoever in any facet or
aspect of the criminal justicesystem and I believed at that
time that if you were convictedof a crime in America.
You were guilty, that's allthere was to it, that the police

(18:55):
and the prosecutors would neverbring anyone to the bar of
justice without credibleevidence of guilt If there was a
mistake made.
I never even really thoughtabout that ever happening.
That certainly was a rare, rareinstance and I thought that

(19:15):
police and prosecutors theystill think that have a very
challenging and notable job ifit's done right.
And so I expressed this toChief.
I said, chief, come on now.
You were a heroin addict outthere on the streets.
Why would they put this murderon you?
They could care less about you,he said.

(19:37):
That's just the point.
He said, if they could clear acase, get a conviction that
looks good on their record,they're doing their job, they're
getting convictions.
The police are arresting peoplefor crimes, violent crimes, and
the prosecutors are convictingthem.

(19:59):
And I was a throwaway, but itdidn't matter to them because it
made them look good in terms ofwhat their job was and what
they were doing.
So anyway, every day, everyafternoon that I hit that cell
block, all he would talk aboutwas his innocence and his wife.

(20:21):
He had a lovely wife, her namewas Elena and she was really a
strong supporter of this.
So Thanksgiving of 1980, hesaid look, get my trial
transcripts, read them and thencome back to me with any other
questions you might have.
So I did.

(20:41):
I got a hold of his trialtranscripts a couple thousand
pages, and other documentsassociated of his trial
transcripts a couple thousandpages and other documents
associated with his case.
Now, I never had any experiencein this.
This was the first time I everread a trial transcript, but I'm
37 years old.
I have a you know, I have apretty good history behind me,
pretty good resume of doingthings and good common sense.

(21:04):
So, anyway, I come back afterThanksgiving.
And he said what'd you think?
I said well, you know how youhave explained this crime to me
and your conviction is backed upby the transcript.
So he said well, let me ask.
He said look, jim, I'veanswered every question you have

(21:25):
over the last three months andI have a question for you.
Do you think I'm innocent?
And I said well, yeah, I guessI do, jeff, I do believe you're
innocent.
Then he challenged me and hestunned me.
He said well, what are yougoing to do about it?
I said what do you mean?
What am you going to do aboutit?
I said what do you mean?
What am I going to do about it?

(21:46):
I'm on my way, I'm going to goreturn to the seminary after
this year off, by the way, Itook a year off from the
seminary to work on his behalf.
I was about ready to do that,but he challenged me and said
what are you going to do?
Go back to your seminary andpray that somebody will come
along and rescue me from thispit.

(22:08):
And I said, well, that's kindof what I was thinking about
doing.
And so he said look, I've beenon my knees for seven years
praying for somebody to comealong and believe in me and help
free me.
You might not realize it, butyou're that man I believe God
has shown you to my cell inorder for you to work to free me

(22:32):
.
So that stunned me and I saidwell, chiefie, I don't know.
I don't know about that, but Isaid I'll give it some thought.
So I went back to the seminaryand I prayed about it and I
opened up the scriptures, as itturned out, to Isaiah the great
prophet.
It just happened upon chapter59, where Isaiah talks about how

(22:57):
truth has fallen from thepublic squares.
There is no truth.
Justice is far from us squares.
There is no truth.
Justice is far from us.
And that it disturbed the Lordwhen he saw that justice was
turned back and truth had fallen, but there was no one to
intervene that word intervene, Ibelieve that God was showing me

(23:19):
that scripture and leading meto intervene on behalf of Jesus.
So I went back to a cell blockthe following week and told him
I made up my decision and I'mgoing to take a year off from
seminary the calendar year of1981, and I'm going to do what I
can to move the ball forward totry and free him from what I

(23:43):
believe was a wrongfulconviction.
And you can imagine that was avery emotional moment for him
and me.
I was giving him my life for ayear, but he was giving me a
purpose, a feeling that I'mdoing something that's real for

(24:05):
somebody else who's in a realdifficult situation.
So there was a mutuality to thedecision and so that's what I
did.
I took a year off in 1981.
And, as it turned out, I stayedin Princeton, moved down to the
seminary and began working onhis behalf.

(24:28):
I did several things.
I found a great lawyer for him,paul Castellero, who was a solo
practitioner in Hoboken and asavvy, seasoned criminal defense
lawyer, and also I ended updoing the investigation.
And also I ended up doing theinvestigation.

(25:01):
I would go up, sure that wecover in today's conversation,
david.
The first fork in the road waswhen I decided to leave the
business world and go into theseminary.
The second fork in the road, ayear and a half later, was when
I decided to take a year off andwork on behalf of Chiefy.

(25:22):
When I told my parents that Iwas honest with them, I said,
mom and Dad, I got somethingthat we need to talk about.
And they of course oh well,what now?
You know?
And I said well, I explainedthe situation.
I've met this inmate at TrentState Prison.
He's doing life for murder.
I believe he's innocent, so Ipromised him I would take a year

(25:46):
off to try and help free him,and that's what I'm going to do.
And my mother was particularlyworried because she said this is
reminding me of Vietnam.
When you were in Vietnam, Icouldn't sleep, and now I'm
going to be worrying about yougoing to Newark.
What do you know aboutinvestigating a murder?

(26:07):
Newark's a tough town.
You don't know what you'regetting into.
This is something way beyondanything that you have any idea
about.
And she was right.
They were right.
But I said I understand that,mother, and I'm sorry I'm going
to create more anxiety for you,but it's something I feel

(26:30):
compelled to do and it's alsosomething I believe God has led
me to do.
And so again they believed, gaveup resisting that and just said
well, I hope you're right,jimmy, and we'll back you on
this.
So they did, by their moralsupport, that is.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
And Chiefie ultimately is exonerated,
correct?
Yes, and I think.
I'm trying to see if I recallthe details, but I think part of
it was the eyewitness testimony.
It was something based on ithad happened at night and
there's no way anybody couldhave identified him.
Plus, with the jailhouse snitchkind of thing.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
We were able to work with Paul Castaneda, the
attorney.
He and I worked on thistogether and we were able to
prove, to the satisfaction of afederal judge, that the
eyewitness could not have seenwhat he said.
He saw number one.
Not only that, but the otherman he identified as fleeing to
see the crime with Chifie wasproven to be in Oakland,

(27:43):
california, when this crimeoccurred.
So his credibility wasshattered.
The jailhouse confession man,richard Delosante, we proved he
testified at trial that this isthe first time he's ever given
any testimony against thedefendant who he claims
confessed to him.
We were able to establish thathe had not only done it against

(28:08):
Chafee, but he had done it threeor four times before he
testified against him.
He was a serial prosecutionwitness claiming that these
different defendants confessedthe crime to him.
Not only that, but the judgegave us access to the
prosecutor's files.
In the prosecutor's file, inhis own handwriting, the trial

(28:29):
prosecutor wrote that Mr De LaSante is in the habit of giving
testimony when he, under directexamination, denied that he ever
did that.
So the prosecutor knew hiswitness was lying and the judge
soon ruled in his opinion thatreversed the conviction,

(28:49):
exonerated Chiefie and in thesummer of 1983, july of 83,
after eight years, chiefie wasfreed and exonerated.
That's two and a half yearsafter I began working on his
case.
But by that time I had returnedto the seminary, after that

(29:10):
year off, finished my Master ofDivinity degree, graduated from
the seminary, chiefie was freed.
Everything came together in thesummer of 83.
Not only that, but Chiefie andI had formed a very close
friendship and he led me tothree other lifers, new Jersey

(29:32):
lifers, and whose innocence Ihad come to believe as well, and
chiefly, was freed.
The third and last fork in theroad Do I go on with my degree
in hand and get ordained as aPresbyterian church pastor, or

(29:55):
do I not do that and set up anonprofit organization to work
to free these three other NewJersey lifers in whose innocence
I believe?
And I felt that the choice wasobvious.
I decided to do that and I setup Centurion Ministries.

(30:18):
The Centurion came to me one dayin the fall of 83 that I named
the Centurion after theCenturion at the foot of the
cross, the crucified Christ InLuke, chapter 23,.
He looked up at the crucifiedChrist and said surely this one
was innocent.
That's where the name came from.

(30:38):
So that's what happened.
Now I told my parents you know,you can imagine being my
parents this is the third.
Everything comes in threes.
I guess I don't know, butanyway they were worried about
me.
Jim, you don't have any money,you're broke.

(30:59):
What are you going to do?
Are you sure these three guysare innocent?
All the legitimate, reasonablequestions were asked, but I went
ahead and did it anyhow.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
And as it turned, out .

Speaker 2 (31:18):
my parents came into an extraordinary sum of money,
some income, and they sent eachof their three kids, me included
, a $10,000 gift, tax-free.
I looked at that as manna fromheaven and, to begin, as a
capital investment in CenturionMinistries.
So I started up Centurion withthat $10,000 gift and that was

(31:42):
the beginning of my work in thisfield.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
You can imagine, just kind of doing the rough math.
Your parents must have beenDepression-era generation and so
for them to see you to go fromthis promising in their mind
trajectory, financially, etcetera, to this.
To what do you attribute yourability to take a upper middle

(32:10):
class background and then kindof transfer that to skills on
the street in Newark in the late70s, early 80s, to be able to
walk the streets and talk topeople?
And I remember I'm a littleyounger than you but I was a
teenager in those years and youknow, in the kind of suburbs

(32:34):
outside of New York City and Iremember the conversations,
pardon me, about places likeNewark, right, like you didn't
even it was kind of a thing, youdidn't even drive your car
there.
And so how does I mean?
Your mom's preoccupations, Ithink, were fairly well placed,
absolutely, how did you developthose skills to be able to
actually talk to people?

Speaker 2 (32:55):
First of all, let's not forget that at that point,
when I started to work withChiefy in 1981, I was um 38, 39
years old I had had quite a bitof experience.
When I was working in japan forthe first management consulting

(33:17):
firm, uh, we did a lot ofmarket research.
So we would study anyparticular market, the other
manufacturers, the distributors,the distribution system and
users, and put together all thepieces of that particular market
.
So this kind of when you'reinvestigating a murder, that's
exactly what you're doing.

(33:38):
You're interviewing a lot ofdifferent people who play
different roles, who playeddifferent roles in this
particular conviction and crimeand arrest, and you put the
pieces together.
So I had this kind ofexperience.
This was not, I mean, murderinvestigations were completely

(34:02):
new to me, but I applied theskills and the experience I had
learned in the business world todoing, to formulating a plan of
investigation for crimes.
That's number one.
Number two, and I also, by theway, had a bit of experience in
Vietnam.
I lived on a South Vietnamesejunk fleet, a Navy base.

(34:24):
I was the only American livingon this base, on a South
Vietnamese Navy base.
I was the only American livingon this base with the South
Vietnamese.
And so you develop.
I'm an American with noexperience in Vietnam and here I
am advising senior SouthVietnamese sailors and officers

(34:47):
as to how to perform ourfunction, our mission, which was
to patrol and try and find VC,but anyway.
Secondly, I like people.
I don't care who they are, Idon't care what their
socioeconomic status is, whattheir race is, et cetera.
I think people feel comfortable.
I'm not a threat.

(35:08):
I don't have a threatening auraabout me, I have a friendly
aura about me.
That's the way I am and I thinkpeople there was an innate
trust that developed when Iwould hit the streets and knock
on doors.
That's an example.
Richard Della Sotti, thejailhouse confession witness.

(35:30):
He was a star witness againstChiefy.
It took me one year to convincehim to talk to me and I did and
he agreed.
By this time he was in a HudsonCounty jail up in Jersey City

(35:50):
and I visited him with twostraight days and he came to
trust me.
He confessed that he lied.
He not only lied against Chiefy, he lied against these other
men and he pointed these othercases where he had offered that
false testimony.
He lied against these other menand he pointed these other
cases where he had offered thatfalse testimony.
He trained me, I got my baptismof jailhouse confessions.

(36:13):
Richard Del Asante led methrough his entire history of
being an informant and a snitchfor the Essex County
Prosecutor's Office.
So you know, you just go stepby step, witness by witness.
One name leads to another.
And then I developed a goodrelationship with the Public

(36:35):
Defender's Office who hadrepresented Chiefie.
I developed a good relationshipwith other men who were wrongly
convicted by RichardDelisante's confession testimony
and you just build this edifice.
And Paul did a great job, thelawyer, he trained me on how the

(37:02):
criminal justice system works.
I learned a lot from Paul.
He was my mentor.
Richard Delisante was my mentorTwo different kinds of mentors,
if you will.
And you know I felt comfortable.
I felt that this was my destiny, this was what I was meant to

(37:24):
do.
This fit my skills, my nature,my personality, my views on life
.
This is where I belonged and itmade me feel comfortable in
doing it.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Clearly it was your calling.
That's a powerful thing.
We forget about the differencebetween a job, a career and a
calling yeah um, so you, youfound centurion and it begins to
grow and I know there's I don'twant to oversimplify all the
hard work that went in and Iknow you didn't know how you're
going to pay the bills and yougot different investors and etc.

(37:59):
Um, talk to us a little bitabout the organization, because
it was really on the cuttingedge of innocence projects,
organizations in the country.
And then, as a secondary piece,um, my understanding of
Centurion is that many of yourcases don't rely on DNA evidence

(38:19):
, although obviously advances inthat technology have helped
immensely on innocence efforts.
But so talk to me about how itgrew and then how you take on
cases that don't rely on DNAevidence and how you got how
your team still takes those on.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Well, yeah, first of all, I've been very fortunate to
, if you will, attract differentpeople who, like I was, are
looking for a way to give them asense of purpose and
authenticity in their work.

(38:57):
The first person I'm thinkingof is Kate Germond.
When Paul and I freed our thirdNew Jersey lifer, nate Walker,
in November of 1986.
That received a lot of mediaattention.
Now, this is pre-DNA.
Dna didn't come into beinguntil 1989, when the first

(39:21):
person was exonerated by DNA fora sexual assault, for any kind
of a crime.
But we freed Mr Walker inNovember of 86.
And Kate Germain had just movedfrom California to New York
City with her husband, who wastransferred or got a new job,
and she read about the NateWalker case in the New York

(39:45):
Times.
So she contacted me becausejust at that time she was like
oh, I don't know, she wasprobably about 35, 36 years old,
she had had no experience inthe criminal justice system, but
she felt to free innocentpeople in prison when they have
nobody else, that's what shewanted to do and she thought she
had the kind of what she wantedto do and she thought she had

(40:06):
the kind of skills andpersonality to do that work as
well, which, as it turned out,she did.
So she joined me and you know,paul Castellaro, the lawyer,
continued to work with us onbehalf of other defendants and

(40:27):
we worked together successfully.
The first seven years of doingthis work, from 80 to 87, there
was very little attention paidto our efforts, even though we
had freed three people.
But once we started to get someattention by the media people.
But once we started to get someattention by the media 60

(40:50):
Minutes, people Magazine,washington Post, new York Times
that gave us credibility.
And if you read about somethingin a paper, you believe what
you read and you attachcredibility to the subject being
written about.
And you attach credibility tothe subject being written about.
Now foundations started toapproach us and provide us with

(41:11):
financial support.
People were volunteering tocome and work for and with
Centurion.
So we were growing bit by bitover the years, bit by bit over
the years.
Centurion we were the only onesdoing this work that is set up

(41:32):
organizationally andsystematically with a single
purpose of freeing innocentpeople in prison until 1992.
So for the first 12 years wewere the only ones doing that.
But in 1992, barry Sheck andPeter Neufeld.
They founded an InnocenceProject based on DNA.
They would take cases only ifit had a DNA potential to

(41:57):
exonerate the convicted person,and they started to have a great
deal of success.
Now we have, to date, centurionhas freed I'm fast forwarding a
little bit to date, Centurionhas freed 71 people, all of whom
were serving life or deathsentences for the crimes of

(42:18):
others, and 10 of them wereexonerated based on DNA, and 10
of them were exonerated based onDNA.
The others were what we callold-fashioned shoe leather All
across the country.
When Mr Walker was freed inNovember of 1986 by Paul and me

(42:38):
working together, not only didKate Germain come forward and
join us, but at that time Walkerwas the third New Jersey person
.
I was only working in NewJersey, nowhere else from all

(43:01):
over the country, from inmatesand loved ones asking me to come
to their location and help freethem or their loved one, one of
whom was the brother of a manon Texas' death row, clarence
Lee Bradley.
This is in early 1987.

(43:24):
And this responding to Clarenceand his brother's plea for help
coming from Texas.
It was like a Macedonian call,if you will, and I heeded that
call.
Now Kate is joining me at this.
She's with me at this point interms of reviewing all these
requests for help, and so Kateand I decided that I should go

(43:46):
down to Texas and see what thisis all about, because Mr Braley
is going to be executed in 12weeks with no other chances of
freedom.
All his appeals have beendenied.
He's dead in the water.
So this took Centurion out ofNew Jersey across the United

(44:07):
States and our first death rowcase.
So all these requests for helpwere coming in from all over the
country and, based on them andour response to them, we went
national and along with that,when Clarence Brantley was, we
exonerated Clarence.
That's another story and, bythe way, that's chapter two in

(44:29):
the book called Framed that Iwrote with John Grisham, if
people are interested in readingthat book and that story.
Clarence came within six daysof execution.
When working with anotherinvestigator and the lawyers in
Texas, we brought forward astart witness against him, who

(44:49):
was there when this crimeoccurred and named the real
killers and recanted hisoriginal testimony and 60
minutes got involved and wefreed and exonerated Clarence
after some time.
I don't know if I went off trackhere in answering your question

(45:13):
, but that's a thumbnail sketchof how we started to grow, and
most of our cases are non-DNA,which involves exhaustive
reinvestment.
We reinvestigate not only theconviction but the crime,
anybody who played any role ineither the crime or the

(45:34):
conviction as we understand it.
It was our mission to interviewthem to see what light they
could shed on the situation.
That includes policeprosecutors, as well as civilian
witnesses, lawyers whorepresented the defendant years
prior.
We interview everybody who hadany connection to the case in

(45:58):
order to develop a case ofinnocence or wrongful conviction
.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
As I read, framed and listened, also read and
listened to your autobiography,I kept returning to this saying
and I think it's.
I'm not sure if he was the onlyone to say it, but Charlie
Munger, who was Warren Buffett'sinvestment buddy, who just
passed away recently, at 99 orsomething, said that if you show

(46:25):
me the incentives, I'll showyou, I'll predict the result.
And so that that concept keepsringing in my, in my ears and in
my, in my mind as I think aboutall these stories where it
seems like the incentives thatare set up by the system are at
counter purposes to actuallywhat society often believes

(46:49):
right, that there's a fairprocess, that, you know, even
the, the concept of usinginformants is a, is, as a, you
know, obviously not everybody'scorrupt.

(47:13):
You said positive things aboutprosecutors and cops at the
start of this conversation, butrun into the combination of
corruption, ambition that comesat the cost of, perhaps,
fairness, and then also theseareas of kind of junk science
when it comes to evidence,whether that's.
You know, I'm not an expert atall on this, but done a little

(47:37):
bit of reading, even fireanalysis and blood spatter and
all of those things, because Iimagine you had to learn all of
that.
You went into it as a fairlyinnocent guy, at least the way
you brought up.
So talk to us about all that.
I know that's a lot.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
Well, first of all, the 10 stories that Grisham and
I tell in the book Framed.
In every one of those storiesthere was some significant
material shenanigans.
The legal term is prosecutorialmisconduct.
Misconduct is a.
It doesn't tell the story,doesn't describe the story.

(48:14):
There's all kinds of misconduct.
These are shenanigans.
This is where, in each one ofthose 10 cases that we describe,
the police and the prosecutorseither support perjury, lie
themselves, coerce witnessesinto lying, hid evidence of

(48:39):
innocence from the defenseattorneys.
When evidence would surface,when credible evidence would
surface, whether it's DNA or asa result of our work with
witnesses coming forward withthe truth, district attorneys in

(49:04):
particular, and police as well,would not want to hear this.
They did not want to hear thatan innocent person was wrongly
convicted in their jurisdiction.
Now, that's the back end of it.
The front end of it is that ifyou're a homicide detective
investigating a murder, your jobis to clear cases and by clear,

(49:28):
get somebody arrested for thatcrime.
That's your job, that's yourmission.
Are not clearing those cases,or a good percentage of those
cases, you are not looking goodto your office and to your

(49:50):
fellow investigators.
Your reputation as a smart,dedicated homicide investigator
is really tarnished anddiminished.
So that that doesn't happen,you start down a slippery slope

(50:16):
of creating evidence, falsifyingevidence in one form or another
that enables you to arrestsomebody for that particular
murder.
Now I can't put my mind in thathomicide investigator, but

(50:40):
maybe they, for whatever reasons, they believe that this is the
real killer and they can't findlegitimate evidence against him
or her.
So they start a fictional storyto help them clear the case and
be rewarded in stature,reputation and maybe promotion

(51:04):
within the office.
Then you take a prosecutor.
If you're a prosecutor andyou're assigned to prosecute a
number of defendants who thepolice have arrested and
consulted with you in the arrestof that particular defendant,

(51:30):
your job is to get convictions.
So if you prosecute 10different defendants of 10
different murders, as an example, and you only come away with
five convictions, you're notdoing your job, you're failing.

(51:51):
Your job is to get convictions.
So you start doing and behavingin a manner that enables you to
increase your chances ofsecuring a conviction in the
mind of the judge and the jury.
And you begin to do things thatare far from kosher and have

(52:21):
witness, have witness, coercewitnesses to tell a story that
conforms with incriminating taleof woe, even though it's not
accurate and, in fact, false.
So these are the pressures thatI think police and prosecutors

(52:45):
are under.
There's also in the largercities, of course.
They are inundated with thequantity of crimes that they are
tasked with clearing orconvicting, and with the higher
quantity, the quality of workdiminishes as well.
Shortcuts are taken thatshouldn't be taken.

(53:05):
Judges during a trial.
Most judges come up through theprosecutorial ranks and off.
Their career was as aprosecutor and now they're a
judge, and they tend, in thesewrongful conviction cases which
we see time and time again.

(53:26):
The judges make evidentiarydecisions as to whether they
will allow certain testimony tobe presented to the jury or
disallow it, and they tend tofavor the prosecution in making
their evidentiary decisions whatthey will allow or not allow.

(53:49):
So, and then you have thedefense lawyers.
All these people are indigent.
They have no money.
They're at the mercy of thesystem.
Their attorneys are mostlycourt-appointed, sometimes
public defenders, but thecourt-appointed lawyers are by

(54:13):
and large, in our experience,are inept, inexperienced, not
devoted to the cause, and don'tdo what they should have done
because they're not getting paidenough to do it, at least in
their own minds.
They don't work on behalf ofthe defendant as well as they

(54:36):
should.
That's an example.
So the first thing I did it'scommon sense, this is not rocket
science when I started work onthe Chiefie case.
On any case, I go to the sceneof the crime in the exact same
conditions that were prevalentwhen the crime was committed at

(54:58):
that location in Chiefie's caseat nighttime, with darkness,
same time of year, to see well,from what the eyewitness said.
The eyewitness was here and hesaid he saw the killer flee
there.
It was obvious to me that theeyewitness, mr Pasilov, could

(55:20):
not have seen what he said hesaw.
It was physically impossible.
We see that time.
But do you think Chiefie'slawyer did that in preparation
for cross-examining?
Mr Pasillo, he did not.
So things are not done.
That should be done, that arecommon sense for defense lawyers
to do, but don't do so.

(55:47):
It's a perfect storm.
You have inept, lazy,inexperienced defense lawyer up
against, in a lot of these cases, corrupt police and or
prosecutors in the samecourtroom at the same time
trying to defend or convict thedefendant.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
And then, as you know , I think you and John Grisham
note this, but it's a lot easierto convict than it is to
exonerate.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
It is easier to convict.
First of all, there is apresumption of I'm talking about
among regular, everyday, goodcitizen jurors.
We all have our biases and Ithink generally, even to this
day, a bias of everyday peoplewho become jurors, regardless of

(56:36):
their socioeconomic level.
They have a presumption ofguilt If that defendant is
sitting in that is beingprosecuted for this particular
crime.
There is a conscious orunconscious presumption of guilt
because you believe that thepolice and prosecutors as I did

(56:58):
when I started this work at theage of 37, if I were on
Chiefie's jury bringing to thatevent where I was in
understanding how the systemworks, I would have believed the
police, I would have believedthe prosecutors, I would have

(57:20):
believed the witnesses for theprosecution, because I'm
thinking they would never bringanybody to lie at a trial.
So there's, a presumption ofguilt there and it really helps
the conviction.
And then getting back to yourjunk science question if a crime

(57:44):
lab person or a forensic expertof one kind or another whether
he's an expert in serology,arson, bite marks, gunshot
residue, fibers, hair, whateverit might be, fibers, hair,

(58:10):
whatever it might be when thatforensic lab person or expert
takes a stand on behalf of theprosecution, what that person
says, you more than likely aregoing to hold his gospel.
Well, this person knows whathe's talking about, that's his
experience, that's his job, thisis expertise and you will tend
to believe that person when infact, often that person is inept
or because he works for thelocal crime lab who works

(58:34):
alongside and in partnershipwith the police, he might skew
his findings, his forensicfindings, towards the guilt of
the defendant rather thanpossible exoneration of the
defendant, because they workwith police all the time.

(58:55):
So they wanted to go along, toget along, to get along, you go
along, and a lot of theseforensic people don't have the
courage to stand up and offerunadulterated scientific
analysis.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
So I want to pivot a little bit.
You mentioned Framed with JohnGrisham and you know it's a
little bit like in the sportsanalogy of playing pickup
basketball with Michael Jordanor something Right Getting to

(59:33):
co-write a book and have notonly write every other chapter
with John Grisham but also equalsize font on the on the book
cover, and you know how, howpublishers are about such things
, Right.
So tell us how thatrelationship came to be and then
how it was writing a book withsomeone as acclaimed and

(59:57):
experienced and really asuperstar in the publishing
world in the publishing world?

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Good question.
All right, let me talk abouthow this came to be.
Grisham and I co-writing thisbook Framed.
I first met Mr Grisham in 2008.
I'm in St Louis working on acase and I read in a newspaper

(01:00:24):
where he's speaking at an eventthat night.
Now, in 2008, he had alreadypublished his only other
nonfiction book, called AnInnocent man, where he wrote
that book based on two men whowere wrongly convicted of an
Oklahoma murder and put on deathrow and later exonerated.

(01:00:46):
So I went to that event and, inthe receiving line, introduced
myself and, much to my surprise,he said oh Jim, I know all
about Centurion.
You guys do great work.
Blah, blah, blah.
So I said well, would you, atsome point when it's convenient,
could you come to Princeton,new Jersey, where we're

(01:01:07):
headquartered, and perhaps speakon our behalf at one of our
fundraising or galas?
He said, of course, which hedid in 2010.
He came up and spoke at a bigfundraiser we had in Princeton.
So then, john and I, we justkind of got to know each other
and four years ago or so, I getan email from him hey, jim, how

(01:01:34):
you doing?
Blah, blah, blah.
I read your book, really likedit.
The truth is all you have.
Would you be interested inco-writing a nonfiction book
with me about wrongfulconvictions?
Well, that blew me away and, tobe quite honest with you, I was
very nervous about doing thatfor two reasons.

(01:01:55):
I know how hard it was to writethat first book.
I'm not a professional writer.
It's hard, hard work and I knowhow much.
I poured my heart and soul intothat book and I was really
exhausted by the time it gotpublished.

(01:02:16):
Did I have it within me to dothis again?
Secondly, could I carry myweight in co-writing a book with
John Grisham?
Do I have what it takes?
And you know, writing a memoiris one thing and now you're
writing, you're telling storiesabout other cases.
Anyway, I said, look, john, letme come down to Charlottesville

(01:02:39):
and let's talk this thing oververy carefully.
So we did, and I walked awayfrom that afternoon with him
convinced that this is somethingI want to do and it's something
I should do, because if this isdone, and done well, because
it's a Grisham book, it willlift up the brand and the name

(01:03:03):
and reputation and even thefundraising for Centurion
Ministries.
So he is a real gentleman, he'sa Mississippian, he's a Southern
gentleman in the best sense ofthat word.
He's generous, authentic,unpretentious, affable, easy to

(01:03:23):
be, with all these qualities.
And so we had agreed I willwrite five stories.
He will write five stories.
The five that I write, I canfreely choose.
I will select the five that Iwant to write Now.

(01:03:44):
I'll run those by John, butit's my choice.
So the five I chose are fiveCenturion cases that I worked on
myself in years past.
The five he chose one was aCenturion Ministries case, a DNA
case.
The other four John is verymuch part of the innocence world

(01:04:07):
.
He follows cases ofexonerations very carefully and
he chose from hundreds ofexonerees.
He chose the four that he wasmost attracted to and would want
to write about and that's whathe did.
So that's how that came to be.
You know, and I've told himthis and I've told Doubleday

(01:04:29):
this, when it was all said anddone and the book was published
and well-received and you know,everything went well, all's well
that ends well, which this has.
As I look back on it, john tooka I mean he took a leap of faith
because you know he'd written50 books before this and now and

(01:04:52):
he's never, ever, co-written abook with anybody.
So now he's asking this rookiereally this rookie person, the
unprofessional rookie person, tojoin him in co-writing a book
with equal weight.
When he took that idea toDoubleday and now Doubleday's

(01:05:15):
never confirmed this, nor hasJohn.
But I'm sure Doubleday saidJohn, are you sure you want to
do this?
You're really going out on alimb.
Bring McCluskey in as aco-partner on this and co-writer
in equal fashion.
But he did, and we never had andthis is the honest to God truth

(01:05:36):
.
We never had one problem in aswe would go about the work of
writing these stories andconferring with each other and,
you know, doing the contractualarrangements with Doubleday this
, that and the other.
It was a pure pleasure to workwith him and now that it's over

(01:06:03):
you know, the book was publishedin October of 2024 and we
worked closely together,although independent of each
other.
Now, he was not my editor and Iwas not his editor.
My editor was the senior editorat Doubleday for nonfiction and
she was great.
Chris Huapala was her name andJohn had his own editor.

(01:06:30):
Uh and uh, but we would, beforewe sent our drafts off to our
respective editors, we wouldsend them to each other with
whatever comments.
But uh, things went verysmoothly and very well and it
really worked out well, nicely.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
And it reads like one comprehensive collection of
stories.
You can't tell who wrote what.
So that should be a complimentto you and I also think that in
his I think it's in the forewordor maybe the after the
acknowledgements.
But Mr Grisham talks about howhe you know he he's devotes most
of his life to inventingstories, right, but has been

(01:07:09):
interested in the innocenceworld and you live these and I
think that seems to be what hasdrawn him to this right and and
and co-writing with you is thisis, this is your blood, sweat
and tears.

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
That's right and he, he fully, as you point out, he
fully recognized that and hefully appreciates that and is
grateful about that.
Now, listen, he's aprofessional writer.
He tells stories.
That's what he does.
Now.
He usually makes up stories,but this is hard work.

(01:07:43):
Makes up stories, but this ishard work.
And then he you know he is fondof saying that he hates writing
nonfiction because it's it'stoo hard.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
You, got to research it, you got to research it and
you got to be, accurate.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
But you know, obviously we have two different
writing styles.
His is, I think, more.
I don't know if plain point isthe right word.
His is, I think, more.
I don't know if flamboyant isthe right word.
But I, you know, I,methodically, I'm not a great
writer, I think I'm a goodwriter.
But the thing about my writingis it's clear, it's clear and

(01:08:22):
it's easy to follow, if you will.
And anyway, I think Doubledayand John have come to appreciate
that we're two different peoplewith two different life
experiences in this field andtwo different ways of writing.
But they'll complement eachother, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
So, on the topic of publishing, I want to return to
your autobiography.
I found very moving andtouching and also, you know you
didn't pull any punches.
It got pretty raw.
Tell us about yourdecision-making during that
process.
You disclosed things about yourlife before one of the forks,

(01:09:04):
in the one of your several forksin the road that you've had
pre-fork, pre-fork, right, right.
What was this a?
Was this a kind of coming cleanwith yourself experience?

Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
well you know what it was was is I.
I thought it was important tobe honest and not come across as
some Sunday school, pureChristian person with no flaws a
flawless kind of person, if youwill to tell the story about my

(01:09:42):
personal life and some of mybehavior, both pre-seminar and
even seminary.
What I was up to and you know Iwanted to let the reader know
this is who I was, this is who Iam, this is who I am.

(01:10:06):
Take it or leave it.
That's.
That's the truth of the matter,cause I think people really
appreciate when people arehonest about themselves and
don't pretend to be somebodythat they're not, and so I
thought that that would uh helpthe reader to have a better

(01:10:27):
appreciation for the writer.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
What spoke to me, I think, was this kind of
sentiment of loneliness andhollowness in one part of your
life, right that, as I listenedto it, these weren't just
stories of gratuitous, you know,escapades in Times Square, just
, you know, just to fill pages,but it was really trying to fill

(01:10:51):
a void in yourself and I, I wasdeeply touched by that.
That then, it seems, fartherdown the road, faith helped to
address as well as dedicatingyourself to this work of of
service to humanity.
So I was very touched.
I, as I told you in thepre-call, I don't get super
excited to read an autobiographywritten by a reverend or by you

(01:11:14):
know.
I'm like, ah, is this justgoing to be more self-help kind
of stuff, like with a niceglossy cover?
And this wasn't that way.
So I appreciate that.
Just from the writer to onereader, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
Well, thank you very much, and that was the purpose
for revealing these skeletons inmy closet.
But, as I'm fond of tellingpeople, yeah, I let some of my
skeletons out in this memoir,but I still got a couple left

(01:11:48):
for the next time around.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
I wanted to talk about what must have been and
must continue to be an emotionaland psychological I don't want
to use the I guess I'm going touse the term rollercoaster, it's
overused but the highs and lowsof working with people on cases
that sometimes can take adecade or more.
Sometimes you get deep intothem and things fall apart and

(01:12:14):
you realize this person's reallyguilty.
You have to back off.
Sometimes you go all the way tothe end and you end up.
I think in one of your casesyou know, an hour before the
person is put to death on deathrow, you're having the final
meal with them.
How do you maintain, as you say, the sense of being
approachable, loving humanity,being open to human beings,

(01:12:38):
being a man of faith, as flawedas we all are?
How do you maintain all thatand do this work that you're
exposed to the worst of humanity?

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
Yeah, boy, that's a $64,000 question right there.
First of all, doing this workfits my personality, my
peculiarities like a glove.
I was bent to do this work.
It fits me perfectly.

(01:13:08):
I really believe that God hascarved out this work for me.
This is who you are, jim, andthis is what needs to be done,
and you're a perfect fit forwhat needs to be done to help
free innocent people in prisonneeds to be done to help free
innocent people in prison, so goto it.
You know one of the statementsby Christ on the Sermon on the

(01:13:29):
Mount.
He says those of you who saveyour life will lose it.
Those of you who lose your lifefor my sake and the gospels
will find it.
And that statement was veryinspiring to me when I was

(01:13:49):
considering whether or not tolose my life in the business
world and what I was doing andgo to the seminary and gain
another life, that I will findit.
I was confident that God wouldlead me to find my new life.
If you lose your life now,don't worry, go on and I will

(01:14:10):
lead you to another life.
I believe that in making mymind up, and it's come to be
confirmed within me as I lookback on everything as far as the
ups and downs of doing thiswork.
One example of this was well,let me give the overview.

(01:14:30):
Centurion has taken on.
I think it's a total of 108cases since I began this work 45
years ago.
71 have been freed.
We've concluded 88.
Okay 71 freed, 15 not.
The other 20 are currentlybeing worked on.

(01:14:53):
They don't have a conclusionyet One way or the other.
Of the 15 that we failed, ifyou will, or the system failed,
six of them we vetted and webelieved they were innocent.
And then we went to work tofree them.
Doing the investigation and itbecame apparent to us that our

(01:15:17):
belief in their innocence wasmisplaced, that they were in
fact guilty, and I would visitonce we reached that belief.
I visited them in prison to letthem know that we were dropping
their case and that was thereason why Two died in prison
while we were working on theirbehalf.

(01:15:38):
Two were executed Jimmy Wingoin Louisiana, roger Coleman in
Virginia, and five we had toleave behind because we couldn't
develop enough new evidence.
There weren't solid legalgrounds to return to court with.
You know this is life.
You can't.
You know you can't wineverything, you can't prevail in
every situation and legalgrounds to return to court with.
This is life.

(01:15:58):
You can't win everything, youcan't prevail in every situation
and you just have to do yourbest to accomplish your mission.
And if you can't, then youreally feel for those who you've
left behind or you could notprevent an execution, but that's
the way the world works.

(01:16:19):
Now here's something that goesright to that question and it's
a matter of how it affects myfaith as well Curry Max Cook,
who's the ninth story in thebook, the Tyler Texas 20,000
word story, which is a whole,nother story.

(01:16:41):
But anyway, mr Cook haseventually been completely
exonerated.
I just want to lead off withthat.
But he went through four trialsthe third trial first of all he
was convicted.
Trials.
The third trial first of all hewas convicted.
The net conviction was reversed.
Then the second trial 6-6 onjury.

(01:17:02):
Third trial he was reconvicted,sent back to death row.
I mean, I was working on hisbehalf for the second, third and
fourth trial not the first, notthe original one when he was
reconvicted and sent back todeath row.
That shook my faith to its core.
What is the redeeming purposeof having?

(01:17:28):
I mean, I was right at thedefense table, I worked long and
hard on his behalf and there'sno question in my mind that he
was innocent.
I knew he was innocent, itwasn't a matter of belief and I
knew who really did it.
It wasn't a matter of belief.
But the jury didn't see it thatway.
Very, very conservative juryand they believe the police and

(01:17:50):
the prosecutors Come hell orhigh water.
And the judge stacked the deckagainst us by not allowing us to
introduce evidence orinformation of innocence.
The deck was stacked against MrCurry, max Cook, and so when he
was sent back, when he wasreconvicted and sent back to
death row, that shook my faithin God.

(01:18:11):
Where are you?
Do you really intervene onthings that happen here on earth
?
Do you have any influence or doyou just watch it and is
everything all just random?
What goes on here, the good andthe bad and the ugly here on
earth?
And so I went back home afterthat conviction from Texas, went
back home and checked into aCatholic Church's parish

(01:18:39):
seminary by myself, with thepermission of the head priest.
He let me stay at theirfacility and I just had a room
and I ate there.
And my objective was to reallygo back to God and ask what I
thought were some pretty hardquestions Do you exist?

(01:19:00):
And if you do, why do you allowthese things to happen?
And I'm reading the scripturesand I saw something that I've
read a million times, but it hitme in a far different way when
I read it in that particular atthat time, in that circumstance,
searching for answers, and thatwas this he said.

(01:19:23):
Jesus said again on the Sermonon the Mount that the Lord, god,
the Father, that he sends rainon the just and the unjust and
sun on the good and the evil.
My interpretation of that isfolks, that's the way the world

(01:19:48):
is.
Good and bad is going to happento all of us, no matter how we
conduct ourselves here on earth.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
It's going to happen to all of us?

Speaker 2 (01:19:56):
no, matter how we conduct ourselves here on Earth.
So the message that I got fromthat was Jim, this is the way it
is Now, go back and finish, doyour work.
So you know it's prettyexistential stuff, but it helped
clarify things within my ownmind and heart, and I did go

(01:20:20):
back to work.
I still have questions that I'mnot completely satisfied with
about God and his existence androle here on earth.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
And I think that same lens can be applied to what has
happened in some of the casesof exonerees where they, like
Chiefie's an example, right, youknow, tragically they get
pulled back into a previous lifeand you know they don't make it
.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
Right, and that's a good point.
And you're right, Chief, forthe listener to know, when we
freed him in 1983, even thoughhe had our support, his wife's
support, he just could notresist the lure of drugs.

(01:21:09):
And the reason for that was hewas, although he was fluent
verbally in English and Spanish,he was illiterate.
And once he got out he was likea little boy, lost in the world
, with no confidence, noself-esteem, and he went back to
drugs and he eventually waskilled in a bad drug deal that

(01:21:31):
went bad up in New York City.
They found him lying in avacant lot.
But here's the thing If it werenot for Jorge de los Santos,
aka Chiefie, a heroin addict whowas innocent of a murder for
which he was convicted and laterexonerated but went back to
drugs and was killed on thestreets of New York City, if it

(01:21:54):
weren't for that man, therewould be no Centurion Ministries
.
An argument can be made that 70other people would not be freed.
And because there would be noCenturion Ministries, all the
staff members, the volunteers,the lawyers who love doing this
work because it makes them feelas if they're doing something

(01:22:17):
important and purposeful theywould not have had the luxury of
being able to do this work andhave a sense of fulfillment for
their life.
So God works in mysterious ways.
I thank God for Jorge de losSantos.

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
It's the proverbial butterfly effect.
Right, there's a wing flappedby a butterfly over here and
you're not sure where the stormor the weather conditions are
going to be changed around theworld.
Right, we don't know untilplaying it in reverse.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:22:49):
You've been extremely generous with your time, Jim,
and I want to acknowledge that.
I have one last question foryou, but before I get there, do
you have anything that you werehoping I was going to bring up
today, themes that have beenknocking around that you'd like
to get out before I get to thislast question?

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
just a minute or two might be.
What's life like for thosefolks who have spent decades in
prison for crimes they didn't do, were exonerated and come home
to a whole different world?
How did they make it?
What are their challenges?
This is a whole nother subject.
And, and not only that, but howdid they do it?

(01:23:34):
What gave them the strength,the courage to live in prison
for decades?
How did they survive?
How did they come out of thisexperience?
Now, all of them come out withsome degree of post-traumatic
stress disorder.
There's no doubt about that,but the great majority are not

(01:23:57):
really severely damaged at all.
They are an inspiration to allof us who come to know them
while they're in prison, whilewe're working on their behalf,
and who have drawn closer tothem once they're free.
They're an impressive lot.

Speaker 1 (01:24:17):
You could imagine, right, just even simple things.
You go into prison when you'reused to growing up with a rotary
phone in your house and onephone line and pay phones, and
then you come out and everyone'swalking around staring at these
screens and gettingbers and andthat's just one little area,

(01:24:37):
right, that has shifted in 20,30 years, or however long folks
are in there, not to mention thehuman relationship side of
things, right, that spousesremarry and and you know just
all those pieces.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
Yeah, and you come home and we do our best to work
with them both financially andhumanly, help them get
reestablished, get their footing, work with them as they work
through their.
You know you can.
When you go away and thenyou're in prison for 20, 25

(01:25:20):
years and then you come home toyour wife or your mother or
whomever, that takes a lot ofwork to navigate those
relationships.
They're very different thanwhen you went in and you're very
different than when you went inand you're very different than
when you went in.
It's a real challenge.

Speaker 1 (01:25:37):
And even the concept I think you mentioned in your
book about choice right To nothave had to make choices for
decades.
And then in the outside world,everything is choice and
everything's customized andcustomizable.
And what do you want to dotonight?

(01:25:59):
What do you want to watch?
And you could imagine howoverwhelming that is for someone
who just doesn't, hasn'tdeveloped those muscles because
they've been, uh, in a de factosense, taken away from them for
so long, and that's that's oneof the things that, uh, because
of that, uh, that's one of thereasons why Chiefie went back to
drugs as well.

Speaker 2 (01:26:15):
He was lost, he didn't know how to contend with
all these freedoms that reallife exposed him to.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
His relationship with his wife, elena, was very
touching.
That must have been complicated.
When he got up and cut, it wasRefell into that world.
Yeah, so before I ask you thislast question, I'm going to
connect, I'm going to link tothe Centurion website and the
show notes and and folks candonate.

(01:26:50):
It's a nonprofit.
I know you, you do events,inevitably people.
I probably also want tovolunteer.
I know you have on your websitethere's a link for that.
Right now it's like it's paused, but I'm sure after the book
came out you got a bunch ofpeople wanting to volunteer too.
But certainly I want toencourage listeners to check out

(01:27:13):
the amazing work that you'vebeen able to do and you were
very humble today, but there areover 50 innocence projects in
one way shape or form, usuallyconnected to law schools, where
they can kind of take advantageof the intelligence and the
cheap labor of law studentsaround the country, and so

(01:27:36):
you've kind of spawned or had areally big role in spawning that
.
That needs to be recognized.

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
Well, I appreciate that and, yes, we were the first
ones to do this, and for thefirst 12 years of our existence,
no one else in the world wasdoing this kind of work on a
systematic, organized basis.
But since then, a number ofInnocence projects have sprouted

(01:28:05):
, and a few of them I don't knowif a few is the right
descriptive, but they've reallydone amazing work in their own
geographical location to freeinnocent people, including the
ones in California as well.

(01:28:43):
But in 2007, another thing thathas developed over the recent 15
years our district attorney'soffices have started what they
call conviction integrity units.
They revisit convictions thathave taken place within their
jurisdiction, where there'sreason to believe that possibly
an innocent person or innocentpeople have been wrongly
convicted or innocent, and sothey devote staff, investigators
and assistant prosecutors toreinvestigate the possibility of

(01:29:08):
wrongful convictions that havetaken place in their office.
And a number of theseconviction review units a few
are very robust and very seriousand have done tremendous work,
and I'm referring to thePhiladelphia office.
They've exonerated under thiscurrent DA, larry Krasner, who's

(01:29:29):
very controversial.
He's a progressive districtattorney, he's running for a
third term, he gave muscle tohis conviction integrity unit
and they have exonerated 45innocent people who were only
convicted of murder, seriouscrimes in Philadelphia.
Dallas is another one.
They're up to 44, theirconviction integrity unit we

(01:30:02):
worked with them on two of themin Dallas and two in
Philadelphia as well some oftheir resources into revisiting
cases of wrongful conviction,rather than fighting stubbornly
to keep that false convictionintact so as not to embarrass

(01:30:25):
the office or their predecessors.

Speaker 1 (01:30:28):
It's almost as if by creating those departments they
could shift some of thatpolitical blowback that comes
when any prosecutor is seen asquote unquote soft on crime.
There's no politician on eitherside of the aisle.

(01:30:49):
There's no prosecutor, whatevertheir orientation, is, who
wants to DA here in San Diegofor a long time and when I
interviewed Justin Brooks,california Innocence Project, he
despite the fact that I thinkpolitically they were very far
apart on the spectrum he praisedher work, especially around
cases of wrongful convictions,for kind of shaken baby cases,

(01:31:16):
for example.
Yes, yeah, those.
I asked him hey, what advice doyou give to your own, to your,
your kids as they were growingup?
And he said never be a nanny.
You know he's a pretty dry, he'sa dry sense of humor, but he
goes never be a nanny becauseyou, it's just so easy to get
pegged with something that fallsand before you know it you're

(01:31:38):
found guilty of something that'sjust.
There's junk science behindthat.
It's hard to pin on people orit's hard to exonerate people,
rather.
So he talked about BonnieDumanis really taking a
methodical look at wrongfulconvictions and perhaps, you
know, maybe perhaps there's apendulum that has swung in
society.
I think you mentioned in yourbook that when you got your

(01:32:00):
start like, america was kind ofin this phase of like.
There's no way that there couldbe a systematic process at work
that is wrongly convictingpeople Like they're up there on
the stand uh, they're probablyguilty and you've been part of
that sea change yes, yeah, yeahit uh.

Speaker 2 (01:32:23):
You know it's interesting that you mentioned
shaken baby.
Um, I just got back from amonth-long trip to japan.
It was a vacation, essentially,and a revisit old times and old
friends, because I have a greataffection and respect for Japan
and the Japanese and theculture.
But I spent two days with theabutting, recently established

(01:32:47):
Japan Innocence Project, wow,and while there and while there
I met one of their exonerees whowas wrongly convicted and
exonerated of a shaken babyconviction in Tokyo, yeah.
So this is something that hasbeen sweeping the world, you

(01:33:10):
know, in a lot of caseserroneouslyously, for a variety
of reasons, just ignorance ofwhat can cause a little baby to
die.
But yeah, I would like to seemore of but a lot of these
progressive DAs who are whoseconviction integrity units are
really robust and strong anddedicated.

(01:33:32):
They're getting a lot of heatfrom police unions and the
establishment the lawenforcement establishment in
their locality.
It has not been easy and acouple have had to leave their
positions as a result.

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):
And I'd imagine that I don't want to go political
about what's the current stateof DC right now is not going to
take any heat off of them, sowe'll leave it there.
Doesn't help matters at all.
Right, so I'm going to come toour final question, and it's a

(01:34:08):
hypothetical.
What would your current selftell your 21-year-old self about
the road that lies ahead, thechoices that lie ahead, the ups
and downs of life?

Speaker 2 (01:34:40):
old self, to be careful on any kind of
stereotypes you might hold to orassumptions you make about the
wide variety of human beings andcultures, race, any kind of
person who you are really notfamiliar with, you really don't
know anything about, you've hadlittle experience interacting
with.
Be careful in making judgmentsabout them that are just not

(01:35:05):
accurate.
Just be open to humankind andwhat their experience in history
is that formed them in the waythey appear to be, and don't
judge others.
Don't judge Because so oftenwhen we judge, our judgment is

(01:35:27):
based on ignorance, whether werealize that or not, and it can
create all kinds of problems forthem as well as you.
So please do your best to notjudge, to be open to others, to
listen to others.
Listen, don't talk.

(01:35:48):
Listen to others and learn allthe time about life as it is for
you and those you encounter.

Speaker 1 (01:35:58):
Thank you for that, jim.
You've led a fascinating lifeand I've just been inspired by
the little.
I've, you know, gotten to chatwith you and also read your work
, and look forward to continuingto follow your work.
Have a great rest of your dayand we'll be in touch soon.

Speaker 2 (01:36:15):
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Have a good one.
All right, bye.

Speaker 1 (01:36:21):
Thanks for joining us on the Hangout Podcast.
You can send us an email atpodcastinfo at protonme.
Many thanks to my daughter,maya, for editing this episode.
I'd also like to underline thatthis podcast is entirely
separate from my day job and, assuch, all opinions expressed
herein are mine and mine alone.

(01:36:41):
Thanks for coming on in andhanging out.